Living up to its promise, Microsoft finally unveiled the first-ever Surface Pro tablet with LTE support. The Redmond-based tech giant already gave hints that their convertible hardware will receive LTE capability before the year ends, and at the Future Decoded event in London last Tuesday, Microsoft announced that the Surface Pro LTE will arrive in the market on Dec. 1.
Microsoft officially introduced their new model as the Surface Pro with LTE Advanced, The Verge reported. There was little surprise following the announcement, as the company already teased their 2-in-1 gadget with LTE support earlier this year. It was revealed that the Surface Pro with LTE Advanced will be powered by an Intel Core i5 processor plus a Qualcomm Snapdragon X16 modem for the LTE network. Qualcomm's LTE chipset with 20 LTE bands appears to be the best option for Microsoft so that users can connect to any LTE networks anywhere in the globe.
Upon the Future Decoded announcement, Microsoft did not disclose the battery specs for Surface Pro with LTE Advanced. However, it is expected that the LTE model will be somehow similar with the current Surface Pro version, which is capable of playing videos up to 13.5 hours. For now, it has yet to be seen if the 13.5 hours running time will be affected by the LTE support.
Before the Surface Pro LTE was officially announced, there were reports doubting the arrival of the hardware this year. To note, there was an erroneous report coming from Microsoft itself, stating that the Surface Pro with LTE support would be released in spring 2018 instead. To correct the misleading info, the company said through Neowin that the Surface Pro LTE would definitely come out in 2017. The public would not believe the rumored 2018 release anyway, as a Microsoft employee already revealed the hardware's arrival at the Ignite session last September.
The base model of Surface Pro with LTE Advanced will boast an Intel Core i5 chipset, 4GB RAM, and 128GB internal storage for $1,149. Meanwhile, the top-tier model having 8GB RAM and 256GB storage costs $1,449.
